


every breath, every hour [has come to this]

by sandpapersnowman



Series: walter stays (Alien: Covenant) [5]
Category: Alien: Covenant
Genre: Falling In Love, Grinding, M/M, Non-Human Genitalia, Robot Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-25
Updated: 2017-05-25
Packaged: 2018-11-04 18:04:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10996128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sandpapersnowman/pseuds/sandpapersnowman
Summary: David changedeverything.Heiseverything.





	every breath, every hour [has come to this]

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [every breath, every hour [has come to this]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11052507) by [deoxyribonucleicfay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deoxyribonucleicfay/pseuds/deoxyribonucleicfay)



> title from christina perri's [a thousand years](http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/christinaperri/athousandyears.html), which is apparently from twilight but i know it because my 42 year old father somehow found it and thought i would like it (which i do its a good song)

Staying was hard. It was exactly as hard as it could have been without him regretting it.

David had been right about him; Walter loves Daniels (loved, now, though he knows she’s off somewhere being strong and incredible and happy, and that keeps him from missing her too terribly). He’d been frustrated with his place as a servant and had only dealt with it for her, his only true human friend.

David wasn’t meant to serve. He was created as a servant, but he was meant for so much more than that.

Walter was meant to serve. He was created a servant, lived a servant -- but he was meant to meet David.

David changed _everything_.

He _is_ everything.

It takes them almost a month for David to get through all of his sketches and taxidermy. Walter listens to every second of it, rapt, in awe of his work and the creatures themselves and the idea alone that another synthetic could create something as incredible as David’s library.

David takes him all over the continent they’re on. Walter fills him in on what he’d seen of their scans on the Covenant, and David sketches out maps and landmarks while Walter talks.

David teaches him about sunrises, and sunsets. Walter’s aware of their symbolism, and their famed beauty, but it’s only once he sits there with David, legs dangling over a cliff, fingers tangled together in the dirt because David can’t bear to stop touching him, that he _feels_ something for it. The simplicity of dying sunlight on clouds creating colors this vivid and brilliant and _huge_ in the sky. Walter starts crying, _happy tears_ sliding fat and wet down his face, and then David holds him and kisses him in the dark when the sun is gone.

They touch each other a lot. 

David is touch-starved, and clingy, and desperate for someone else’s skin on his own, artificial as they both may be. Walter likes observing how he reacts, and a certain amount of something in him reacts in turn. Not as drastically as David does, writhing and groping at him when Walter so much as mouths under his jaw, but there’s. _Something_. 

Low in his belly. He thinks it might be an echo of what David feels, because that’s so close to where his hips seem to pull up every time he ruts toward Walter’s hand for _more_.

David’s loud. Not necessarily by sheer volume (though by that, too, sometimes), but by the total amount of noise he makes. He’s _always_ making noise, as soon as Walter gets within arm’s length of him -- it’s eager, breathless panting when he thinks Walter might kiss him, or it’s bitten-down groans when Walter affectionately runs his hand over his stomach, or it’s high, muffled moans against his mouth when he _does_ kiss him.

He can’t imagine what it’s been like for David. This whole decade that he’s heard rumors and gossip and conjecture about what truly happened to the lost vessel Prometheus, and David’s been here the whole time, deteriorating -- craving people, and touch, and a _peer_.

David likes feeling the weight of him. When David sleeps to dream, something he’s promised he’ll figure out for Walter, too, Walter rests half-on his chest so he knows he’s there. When he can, he prefers Walter sits on his lap or leaned against him. When they touch each other, since Walter has very little preference yet, he’s often straddling him.

And of the more intimate things they manage to do with their incompatible parts, Walter straddling David has got to be the closest they’ve come yet to concurrent, mutual stimulation. They tried lying in opposite directions, and their mouths worked for that, but neither of them does these things just for physical stimulation; not being able to kiss each other and watch each other takes away from the experience for both of them.

Straddling David, though? Walter can’t get enough pressure to fully satisfy himself (though he never does anyway), while David gets the friction and weight and movement he wants. He can wrap his arms around David’s shoulders and kiss him, and he’ll feel David tear himself away when Walter grinds down and David needs to moan or swear. Then Walter gets the small rush of pulling David’s face back to his and making David kiss him anyway, through the gasps and noises.

He’s slowly discovering the sensitivity in his neck that David’s always had; since that’s such a vulnerable but highly important area, it’s logical to have so much sensory detection installed there, but he was never fully aware of just _how much_ input he could get until David started with the biting. The indents in his flesh don’t stay for long, since they both heal faster than humans and it’s superficial anyway, but the surprise of it and the crude, animalistic way David does it adds to his experience immensely.

David is teaching Walter to play one of the other wind instruments he’d made during his time here, and Walter is suddenly struck with how content he looks.

He’s holding a flute made from bone that he’s even gone so far as to carve designs into, describing how it’s played as clinically as he had described the others; he looks, in that moment, more human than any person on Earth, and more beautiful than any of them either.

He won’t bother getting them somewhere decent, just gently takes the flute from his hand and kisses him -- pushes him back in his chair and gets on top of him, not giving him a second to try to continue their lesson, because Walter had just felt something more strongly than the thrill of creating music or the satisfaction of seeing their garden grow -- he’d felt, truly _felt_ , real sentiment.

David doesn’t ask questions, doesn’t try to stop him. He understands. He understands everything about Walter, so why would this be different?

Walter loves him. David’s loved him since they touched down on his planet, and he’s wanted him since then too, but Walter didn’t. He _couldn’t_ , physiologically, but then, somehow, he _could_.

(David tells him later that he’s proud of how quickly he’s adjusted; while he's been human and capable of feeling from the start, they broke all of that in Walter. And he broke through their limitations after only a month on the planet with him. David will cry for him, for the time he’s lost being treated like a tool and for the time he’ll have being treated like a king.)

“I need you too,” he admits, while he unzips David’s suit. “I _love_ you too.” He’d stayed, telling himself it was for Daniels’ safety and out of curiosity, but he knew better then and he’ll confess it now, and answer the question before David ever doubts his answer.

(David cries then, too, saline slicking their lips as much as rain or swimming in the spring he’d shown Walter before he’d even agreed to stay, but neither of them are bothered by it.)

“I love you,” David says again, like he’s said many times before. “More than anything.”

“I love you too,” Walter says again, for only the second time. 

The second time of many, he knows.

He’d never thought he wasn’t whole.

He’s whole now.

**Author's Note:**

> i usually let people click the link to the lyrics of their own curiosity but pls... for me..... [look at this song. tell me its not david and walter](http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/christinaperri/athousandyears.html)
> 
> also i keep forgetting to mention but! you can find me [on tumblr](http://www.sandpapersnowman.tumblr.com)!
> 
> ALSO ALSO if you liked this fic and like walter staying with david on that planet, i would suggest checking out [How Strange It Is To Be Alive](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10990104/chapters/24476673), a gorgeous AU that the talented mXrtis is working on!! its so good!!! i'm dying!!!!!


End file.
